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As proof that there’s more to Seattle than just good coffee and people throwing fish, here’s a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the Emerald City’s own Petosa Accordions–the only company still building accordions in the United States:

Organized by the 30-nation Confédération Internationale des Accordéonistes (CIA), this event is now in its 5th year. So why not take a moment today to play your accordion for someone–or better yet, with someone–and know that you’ll be celebrating with fellow accordionists all over the planet.

Jazz is so much more than music: it is a lifestyle and a tool for dialogue, even social change. The history of jazz tells of the power of music to bring together artists from different cultures and backgrounds, as a driver of integration and mutual respect. Jazz gave rhythm to the struggles of the civil rights movement in the United States, and has done so elsewhere in the world. Through jazz, millions of people have sung and still sing today their desire for freedom, tolerance and human dignity. [...] I invite you to join us in spreading the message of energy, sharing and peace through culture and music.

Well if that’s not something to celebrate, what is?

To get this party started (and because this is an accordion website after all), here’s a healthy dose of jazz from the late, great Art Van Damme:

A while back I was invited by the folks at The Recording People to add a dash of accordion flavoring to a couple of tracks they were producing for Zack Joseph.

Well those tracks, plus seven more, are now available on iTunes for your listening pleasure. Worth checking out–if not for the excellent, rootsy blend of folk and country, then for the cover alone, which features probably the most awesome photo I’ve seen all month…

Here’s yet another article about how accordion lessons are making a comeback, thanks to the whole “accordion is cool again” trend. Although this one gets bonus points for noting that, in some communities, the accordion never became uncool in the first place:

Turns out that the 100th year of the festival is coming up in September, and organizers are hoping to celebrate it with the performance of a 100-accordion orchestra.

Brie there or be square!

An article in the the Dallas Morning News profiles accordion-playing couple Elena and Gregory Fainshtein. It offers some good insights on keeping accordion alive in the modern world and the importance of spreading the accordion gospel:

“If we don’t get youth involved, we’re not going to have a future. We just need more people playing. They don’t have a resistance to it. They’ve just never been introduced to it.“

Lastly, legendary jazz harmonica player Toots Thielemans recently announced that he is retiring at the age of 91. Why mention this in an accordion blog? For one, the harmonica is a close cousin to the accordion (they’re both members of the free reed family of musical instruments). Secondly, as the highest-profile ambassador for harmonica in jazz, Thielemans created a level of respect for “unconventional” instruments that had to trickle down at least a little bit to jazz accordion.

And lastly, it turns out that accordion was his first instrument!

So I’ll wind up this post with one of my favorite Toots Thielemans tracks. He’s best known for Bluesette, but I really like this 1979 pairing with pianist Bill Evans on the Phil Markowitz tune Sno’ Peas:

If you’ve always wanted to beef up your knowledge of the basic nuts and bolts of music, you might want to check out the latest MOOC (“massive open online course”) from Berklee College of Music: Developing Your Musicianship.

The course starts on April 1st (no foolin’!), but registration is open now. It’s totally free, suitable for all instruments, and you can drop the class at any time if you decide it’s not up your alley.

It’s the music, my dear, that keeps you young. I play almost every day, either for other people or just myself. It’s important that people keep music in their lives because they will not only live longer, they’ll be happier and feel better at the same time. [...] Just wait until you’re old, you’ll see what I mean as long as you keep music in your life.

Actress Donna Garner was almost perfectly suited for the part of the accordion-playing Czech mother in the musical “Once”. The only problem? She didn’t know how to play the accordion, and the audition was in eight days… Once: A musical with a different kind of love story

I know the Welk farm is out of the way… You have to want to go there, and when you get there, out there in the middle of nowhere, there is not very much to see. Maybe that IS the point. Welk should be a hero to every dreamy North Dakota kid who wants to start a band in his garage, every fifth grade doodler who dreams of being Michelangelo, every shy farm girl who dreams of being a Rockette or performing with the Berlin Philharmonic.

Looks like Herman Fuselier, writer for Lafayette, Louisiana’s The Advertiser, has a response to the same article I just blogged about:

The accordion boom is interesting news for the rest of the country. But here in south Louisiana, that’s like reporting sugar is sweet, Halle Berry is gorgeous and Peyton Manning is a pretty good football player. ...the rest of the nation should know it’s only catching up to what Louisiana has known for a long time.

You and I already knew this, of course, but The Atlantic has finally noticed that accordions are making a comeback… Accordions: So Hot Right Now

“I think in general people have felt a little bit braver about what kind of music they’re creating, and more interested in stepping outside of the realm of what pop or rock music is supposed to sound like.”

The owner of Petosa makes a good point in the article that the accordion is one of the “only instruments that’s basically found in every style of music throughout the world.” Truth be told, in most of those parts of the world, the accordion never really went away. So I suppose this “comeback” is mainly a United States phenomenon.

In any case, will we ever reach the levels of the accordion’s mid-century, pre-rock-and-roll heyday here in the States? When, as the article reminds us, “some towns had as many as four accordion schools in a couple of blocks”? We shall see…